"I do not know," replied Gwyneth, with difficulty retaining her calmness. "The sooner the better, I should think"—with some suspicion of bitterness.
The old lady looked up and eyed her in the kind, rude way elderly folk often affect.
"You do not seem quite to like the idea. You are not yourself this morning, dear. You know no ill of the young man, do you? One has to be so careful in these days. Eva is the apple of our eyes," and the proud mother paused and pondered as she wiped the gathering moisture from her spectacles.
"Shall I get the book now, Mrs. Dowling?" asked Gwyneth, as cheerfully as she could, while a burden was pressing upon her heart, and a storm of mingled feelings agitating her. But, despite her sorrow, she would do her duty.
"Yes, dear, please do; you will find the volume in Eva's room, on her little book-case over the bed."
Gwyneth involuntarily started, but in a moment rose calmly and sought Eva's apartment. She seized the book nervously, intending to hurry back with it. Her eye would rove, however. It caught sight of a shining object on the top shelf.
"It could not be!" she exclaimed in anguish. "I will not believe it. I shall not even look." She hesitated. "Yes, I will," she continued, "to settle the matter. Of course it cannot be mine!" Standing on tip-toe the girl reached down the little case. Her heart beat wildly. Behold, in her hand, her poor, dead mother's gift passed on by her child to the man who swore he loved her! With trembling fingers she opened the case, and closed it again, and sat, lest she should fall, on the pallet bed, and gazed far across the creek, through the gum-trees to the fields beyond, where reaping-machines were merrily
